Season For Desire Page 8

She wanted, very much wanted, to know the answer to her question. She had never wondered about a man’s occupation before. The roles of the men she knew were no mystery, because theirs were the same as hers. All of them were part of a long line, and the weight of tradition and legacy rested on their shoulders.

  Absent such a heritage, would one feel lighter? It seemed not. In one generation, a father could bow a son to his will.

  In one generation, a father could bow a daughter.

  Almost.

  “Once I hoped to design buildings.” He stretched out a hand to her, drawing her to her feet. Just a quick clasp of hands; then he strode to a walnut sideboard on which now-dry evergreen garland had been heaped. “Philadelphia took a beating the last time our countries fought. I can’t say I wanted to be a soldier since I had so many siblings to take care of, but I did want to help my city rebuild. I went to university to learn anything I could about mathematics. Geometry. I talked to people who draw up building plans as a profession. Architects.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Nothing.” Dry needles fell as he lifted a garland. “The war killed Philadelphia’s shipping industry. These last few years, everyone wants to ship through New York City. Safer, I guess. Money’s leaving Philadelphia, and no one needs to build grand new homes or warehouses there.”

  She began a phrase of sympathy, but he spoke on. “They do need paper, though. So there’s the paper mill to oversee. Paper milling was never my father’s dream, but it supported his family. Now he’s on a mission. A quest. Whatever you want to call it. And at the end of it, he’ll have the life he ought to have had a generation ago.” He dropped the garland. “So he hopes.”

  “For now, he has given you his dream?”

  “So it seems. All that geometry allows me to design a marvelous brooch. That’s . . . worthwhile. I suppose.”

  “Of course it is. The world needs beauty. And if you have a son one day, then maybe you could turn him into an architect,” she said lightly.

  He did not seem to want to look at her, so she picked up a garland of her own. The dry needles poked her hand; hissing, she dropped it to the pile. “These branches will shed themselves bare in a day. I don’t think we can do anything with them.”

  “No, I suppose not.” He had retreated behind a wall of folded arms and averted eyes. He had told her more than he intended, maybe.

  Good. Let him feel naked for a change.

  Not literally, of course. Only figuratively.

  Right. So there was no reason to imagine those broad shoulders flexing as he tugged a shirt over his head, nor to wonder whether he was freckled anywhere besides his cheekbones.

  None at all, except for the fact that—he was honest, and that was a quality more heady and attractive than she could possibly have imagined.

  Also, his shoulders did look uncommonly fine. In his close-fitting coat of dark-blue wool, no padding made excuse for flaws of form.

  He nudged a few fallen needles into a neat pile atop the sideboard, then stretched out a hand. “More puzzle box? What do you say?”

  “All right.” Quickly, she grabbed the needles again, letting them stab her into coherence. Then she trailed back across the room after him. “You really are fortunate,” she said as she dropped into her chair. “To know that your father is pleased with you and that he trusts you. I cannot say either of those things.”

  Audrina had been raised with only one goal, one occupation: to marry well and make her family proud. The two were linked and inextricable. Without the former, she could never accomplish the latter.

  I do not want you seen in London. Don’t return unless you’re betrothed.

  On her own, she was not good enough. And so she had failed.

  “Don’t let yourself get too envious.” Giles sat and sifted through her closely written notes, squinting. “My father is proud of me in the way a man might value a dependable employee. He knows I’ll do what I say I will. I’ll do what I’m asked even if I don’t want to.”

  “For example, if someone asks you to stop a wayward carriage?”

  “Something like that.” Dropping the stack of notes, he flattened his hands atop the table and stared at them. “My mother was ill for years before her death. Pain, constant pain. My father traveled often for business, and I had five younger siblings at home. Who else was to take care of them?”

  “So you became the man of the house.”

  “Nothing so respectable. In your language, I was the governess and the bootboy and the footman and—”

  “The cook?”

  “Thank God we had one of those. My family would have gone hungry relying on me. But I was the valet.” His teeth closed on the hard t, lingering on the sound, and he rubbed at the thin scar on his lip. “I taught my younger brother to shave. Not well enough, though. When he practiced on my face, he left me this memento.”

  His light smile granted Audrina permission to laugh.

  “I was glad to help, though.” At last, he pulled the puzzle box toward himself, though he seemed reluctant to take up their task again. “Usually. I loved—love—my family.”

  “They need you.” Audrina picked up the quill she’d been using, then set it down in a hurry when it rubbed ink on her fingers. “It must be nice to serve a purpose.”

  “They don’t need me as much as they used to. Now they’re almost grown, much as I hate to think of it. My youngest sister Sarah’s going to be married next year, if she has a dowry. I’m just here in England to make sure my father doesn’t spend a real fortune looking for a fake one.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then”—he lifted the box, shaking it lightly—

  “I return to America to run a paper mill, or design jewelry. Or both.”

  “What about designing a building?”

  “Not in Philadelphia. I’d have to move to New York City for that.” The words were a flick of dismissal.

  “Too far away from your family?”

  “Almost a hundred miles.”

  Her brow knit. “But. . .” The distance from London to York was far more than that—to say nothing of the distance from America to England.

  He could not possibly be unaware of this. So he must wish to design buildings less than he wanted to be near his siblings.

  The thought brought her sister Charissa to Audrina’s mind, along with a gray wash of guilt. The three years separating their ages had seemed a huge gulf when they were younger, but as the last two sisters at home, they had recently become confidantes. The threat of missing Charissa’s long-desired wedding was a punishment. A judgment for testing the waters of scandal, trying to bait her family into caring about her.

  Giles, for his part, had taken a nobler path, winding his relatives close to him with responsibility and care.

  But Audrina knew, people couldn’t be made to care. Not out of exasperation, not out of gratitude. Not for any reason except the tender tendencies of their hearts.

  She rubbed her ink-stained fingers together. “That box is empty.”

  “Yes, I think so, too.” He set it down, then pressed at his temples. “But remember, princess, I do what I say I will. And I told my father I’d get it open.”

  “And so off he went to decorate the house, leaving this precious possession in your care. He does trust you. You see? You are fortunate.” Giles’s father wanted to cross an ocean with him. Audrina’s father didn’t even want her to come to London.

  He caught her eye and smiled, but it wasn’t the sort of grin that brought out his dimple. It was more shadowed. Wary. If the usual smile resonated like crystal, this one rang a bit false. “Such praise from you, princess? I guess I really am fortunate.”

  “One day soon,” she said crisply, “I am going to come upon you while you are asleep and—and ink a mustache on your face.”

  “Will you really? I’m even more fortunate, then.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because you’ll be prowling about my bedchamber. With a pot
of ink in hand and facial vandalism on your mind, true—but nonetheless, the situation you describe is intriguing.”

  Her face went hot.

  “I should try to resist, of course, for the sake of my reputation. I’ve no great fortune or rank; nothing to lose but my good name. But you know how it is in England,” he said conversationally. “The aristocracy must be allowed to do whatever they please. If you slipped into my bedchamber to seduce me, I’d put up a token resistance. But ultimately it would be disrespectful of me to decline any offer you might care to make.”

  “You are not as improper as you pretend to be,” she said, playing upon his earlier words.

  He leaned forward across the table, granting her a sapphire wink. “You mustn’t say so aloud. If anyone knew what a genuinely kind and delightful person I was, I’d be deluged with admiration.”

  “Your secret is safe with me.” She could breathe him in: the scent of evergreen soap, the spice of tea grown cold on his lips. “I promise not even to hint at it by excessive admiration.”

  He shot her the dimpled grin, then returned his blue gaze to the golden panels of the puzzle box.

  All a joke; only a joke.

  But his words were more seductive than he had intended, making her arms prickle, her fingers tingle. He teased her about seducing him, as though—as though it were ordinary for a woman to pursue a man. To want passion; to seek it; to chase after her own desires.

  And then he left the subject in her hands to drop or pick up as she saw fit.

  Every other man and manner of society had denied any of this. All of this. It seemed as far-off and mysterious as one of the bright, blobby stars she’d sometimes peered at through her father’s telescope when she was a child.

  Before he told her she must not touch his things and threatened to sack any servant who allowed her into his office.

  The only power Audrina had at the moment was to follow, to obey. To stay away from her sister’s wedding so as not to remind society of her undesirable existence—unless a betrothal rendered her, again, acceptable.

  Yet Giles saw her differently. Giles, who had seen her weak and afraid: two things she pretended never to be. He must be made to forget that. If he would grant her power, she would take it.

  But why must she wait for it to be granted?

  Her thighs loosened, and she sank heavily against the slatted back of her chair. “I am not going to draw a mustache on you while you sleep tonight,” she began.

  His eyes flicked up to meet hers. “Oh, good. I’d look unfashionable.” With a frown, he considered the puzzle box again.

  “But,” Audrina continued, “I do want to look through Sophy’s telescope.” She wanted to see something new, and she wanted to see it with someone who thought she might be good for something. Even if neither of them knew what yet.

  “Excellent non sequitur. Might I suggest you talk to Sophy about that?”

  “I will. Then would you look with me? At the stars?”

  Tugging at another panel of the box, he said, “I never cared much about the stars. There is too much to learn and do on the surface of the earth.”

  She folded her arms.

  After a moment, he caught on. “But I am wrong. Obviously. I’m twenty-seven years old, so I guess it’s time I changed that.”

  Relief swamped her, followed by a thin, crisp edge of anticipation. “I am twenty-four. So I suppose I have three more years before I have to change the sort of person I am.”

  “Only your attitude toward telescopes,” he said. “The sort of person you are, princess, you need never change at all.”

  Chapter Eight

  Wherein Two Dozen Heads Are Made Festive

  After twenty minutes of climbing around the great staircase of Castle Parr, winding evergreen branches around the stair rail and each baluster, Estella understood the look on Lord Dudley’s face. I’m exhausted, said every line of his wrinkle-wreathed expression, but I cannot admit it, because this was my idea.

  Estella accepted a length of juniper from her host’s thin hand, then shoved the garland untidily around the last baluster. She rubbed her hands together; they smelled like a gin distillery.

  Or a warm, resinous evergreen scent, if one preferred to think of things in that sentimental way.

  “I think you’ve earned a rest, Dudley.” As she straightened, a stitch in her side reminded her that she was no longer as flexible as she’d been in the eighteenth century.

  “Oh, no.” Lord Dudley’s voice was a rusty file. “No, no. I’m quite all right, dear lady. I’m sure there’s not enough greenery in the drawing room, and we haven’t decorated the antique passage yet.”

  “There’s a passage? Is it a secret passage?” Richard Rutherford sounded delighted even as he scrabbled on the landing for dropped needles and twigs.

  “No, it’s not a secret passage,” barked Estella. “Good Lord, Rutherford. Let the servants pick that up. You were married to an aristocrat. You should know better.”

  “Know better than to make myself useful when I can?” Rutherford smiled, handing the gleaned decorations into the arms of the footman following them about. “No, I don’t suppose I do.”

  Estella narrowed her eyes, which only made him smile more brightly. He had a troublesome habit of putting her in her place when she meant the opposite to happen.

  A very troublesome habit. She was beginning to forget her place—and his.

  When she turned back to Lord Dudley, her voice was all sugar. “Lord Dudley, at a house party hosted by my nephew-in-law, Lord Xavier, I learned a trick that serves wily gentlemen well.”

  “You serviced gentlemen at a house party?” Lady Dudley had wandered back up the stairs and into the edge of their conversation. “Are you short of funds?”

  Estella wanted to snort with laughter and cover her face at the same time. She settled for a harsh “No” and turned back to the viscount. “The trick is that there’s a type of brandy just the shade of brewed tea. You can have it served out any time of day and Sophy will never know the difference.”

  “I would know,” said Lady Dudley.

  “Know what, my dear?” The viscount’s heavy white brows had lifted with innocence.

  “That Lady Irving serviced men at a house party.”

  A strange heat suffused Estella’s cheeks. Embarrassed? Surely not. Though she couldn’t quite look at Rutherford as he spoke. “Let’s get you settled with some . . . tea, Lord Dudley. And you, my lady—would you like the dogs brought in from the stables?”

  “Yes, it’s time.” The viscountess tucked her long hair behind her ears, looking pleased. “Yes. Good. They can have biscuits when Dudley has tea.”

  Lord Dudley directed them to a chamber he called the “yellow parlor,” which Estella approved as being bright enough to chase away despondency. It was almost the same shade as her yolk-yellow turban, though the turban had the undeniable advantage of being spangled with paste gems in fiery colors. Once tea was ordered—and brandy, to be served to the viscount in a teacup—Estella was satisfied that her host and hostess would ease themselves before the fire for a while.

  “Rest here, and don’t worry about anything,” she said. “If you do, I’ll find out and I’ll be monstrously annoyed.”

  Lord Dudley laughed, closing his eyes as he sank back onto a long sofa. In repose, his face turned toward his wife, and a smile lingered on his worn features. Lady Dudley perched, eager, on the edge of a chair seat, awaiting the arrival of her dogs.

  Tired, but together. Though they were in their twilight years, they sought means of keeping their lives bright.

  When Estella exited the yellow parlor a few steps behind Rutherford, she felt as though the sun were eclipsed.

  “What are we left with, Lady Irving?” Rutherford’s straight brows were furrowed as he nudged the remaining pile of trimmed branches with one black boot.

  Estella blinked at him through watery eyes. What, indeed? A fortune and a solitary mansion? Put in that way, her life sou
nded like that of Lord and Lady Dudley, though she hadn’t even an ailing spouse or a bluestocking daughter-in-law to keep her company. “I—” She could say no more before her throat closed.

  Richard waved his hand at the pile of greenery. “Here. For use in the house. What do you fancy?”

  Oh. Again, her cheeks went hot. As though her face thought that this was the year 1780 once more, that she was a maiden in her first Season hoping to catch the eye of an earl.

  Idiotic face. Idiotic maiden, too, for that matter.

  “No holly or ivy until Christmas Eve.” Her voice came out more harshly than she intended. “That’s bad luck.”

  “Is it really?” Rutherford tilted his head, appearing fascinated. “What do you think would happen if you hung it sooner?”

  I would find myself so desperate for company that I’d take up with two Americans and my oldest friend’s lost child.

  I would find myself looking at a man—really looking—for the first time in decades.

  I would want him to look back at me and like what he saw.

  She gave her turban a steadying pat. “I don’t know, but it’s not done. It’s a tradition. Do Americans understand traditions?”

  “Of course. What may we use instead?” The footman—Lord Alleyneham’s servant, who had stated his name was Jory—had carried off the fallen leaves and tiny sprigs left after decorating the staircase. Rutherford crouched to sift through the remaining stock of evergreen.

  Looking down on him, she saw silver and dark brown threading equally in his hair. At his temples, he had gone entirely gray, but seen from above he looked a bit younger. He still had a nice form, the build of a man who kept himself active. Good shoulders within that bottle-green coat.

  “How old are you?” she asked.

  Rutherford picked up a branch and held it to his nose, breathing deeply. “Fifty-five.” He stood and extended the branch to Estella. “Rosemary. I like the scent. Is this acceptable, or is it bad luck, too? Will the roof fall in if we hang it?”

  “Don’t you want to ask how old I am?”

  He grinned, refusing to be withered by her most withering tone. “Even in the wilds of America, that would be impolite.”